Millions of Afghan women may be denied vote

Millions of Afghan women will be denied their chance to vote in presidential elections this week because there aren't enough female officials to staff the women-only polling stations.

A desperate shortage of female staff is threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the elections, which are the pinnacle of western-led efforts to build a peaceful democracy. Strict cultural norms mean women can't vote in male-run stations.

Women's activists said the Independent Election Commission needs to recruit 13,000 more women before the elections, which start on Thursday night.

The IEC refused to comment on recruitment figures, but papers leaked to the Independent suggest the shortfall is much worse, at more than 42,000.

Without female staff to operate the strictly segregated stations, and more importantly, without female searchers to frisk women voters as they arrive at those stations, conservative men across the country will ban their wives and daughters from taking part.

"If half of the population can't participate, the election is illegitimate," said Orzala Ashref, a director of the Afghan Women's Network. "Without women's votes, without women's participation, of course the election is not going to be valid."

"You need female staff," said leading women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh. "Otherwise women won't dare go out. Their families won't let them."

The problem is most acute in the southeast, where there are just 2564 women on the IEC books, less than 20 per cent of the 13,400 target. In the south, they have less than half the 10,428 women required.

In a sign of growing desperation, officials have suggested hiring old men and boys in their place.

"We are totally against this," Ashref said. "The men will tell women, 'If you go and vote it will be men who search you.' They won't let them go."

At Nad-e-Ali in Helmand, an area recently under Taleban control, a lack of policewomen had meant that required searches of female voters cannot be carried out.

Local elders have rejected suggestions that female British troops should take their place.

Many men in this deeply conservative area are adamant that they will not let women from their families vote in mixed stations. Niamtullah Khan, a 57-year-old farmer, said: "We are very concerned about this. Most of my neighbours are against letting women go to these places where anything can happen. We should look ahead and have change, but I would not approve of my wife, sister, or daughter going into buildings with unknown men."

The lack of female staff has fuelled fears of proxy voting, where men vote for their entire families.

Concerns were raised last year when the registration of "phantom" women voters outnumbered men.

Women's registration cards are especially prone to fraud because unlike the men's, they don't include a passport picture. Photographs of bare-faced women are deemed culturally unacceptable.

- INDEPENDENT